


The Winner

by completetheory



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23312098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: The incarnations of creative and destructive Chaos go about their business, mutually opposed.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Winner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



> Dedicated to everyone who is currently doing their best. Thank you.

The facet that broke from Nyarlathotep and called itself Nodens circled the living works of the child of chaos. He rained down upon these mortal children all the empty religions - avarice, apathy, cruelty, hypocrisy innumerable. He took their hands and showed them how to poison their water for profit, how to seed their earth with radiation, how to cut costs to the tune of safety and sanitation, that injury and illness ran rife through their cities. 

A few - enough - heard the call of their new priest. He played percentages. It was not required that all, or most, or even many subscribed to his religion of greed and selfishness. The visibility of a small number and their impact was enough to sow the ruination he craved, to destroy what would naturally grow. 

Nyarlathotep, as he often did, watched for a little while, and then threw his own consciousness to his worlds, like a shower of meteorites. He wrapped himself in chitin or skin, the leathery reptilian garb of native occupants, the soft almost-hairless down of the humans: whatever gave him an appearance to match. Everywhere Nodens went, Nyarlathotep followed, as Order and Chaos were one and the same. 

Where Nodens spread ignorance and superstition, Nyarlathotep prophesied dire warnings, the consequences of selfishness and its excesses. Where Nodens peddled convenient distractions, Nyarlathotep urged an elevated comprehension of physics, of mechanical sciences. Where Nodens sold a momentary high and the inevitable endless drop, Nyarlathotep marshaled the full force of foresight, and wrapped his arms around every doctor and scientist, every philosopher and bold rebel who bore hard truths into their hearts. 

The only comfort in Nyarlathotep's offering was the understanding that the universe was neutral toward its occupants. That individuals had responsibility to make sacrifices. That there was no coveted sequence of 'good' action that would lead to a fair outcome. That all was chaos; choice interacting, ricocheting uncontrollably off unforeseen decisions a hundred, a thousand times. That life was not fair, but that society, with studied and calm patience, could level their behavior and create a better world than the one that existed without their intervention.

Those who did, and those who did not: all paid the price or reaped the reward for the actions of a few. 

And for every one who rotted away under Nodens' nepenthe, two took to Nyarlathotep, and five embraced the social compassion of their ancient ancestors - for only social species survived long enough to make civilizations, let alone to kiss the stars in spaceflight. For all Nodens' destroyers, the hoarders, the fearmongers, the capitalistic opportunists who calculated money in blood and last-gasps, Nyarlathotep rose with a bastion of those resigned to the long night, who kindled their own flames from glass and filament to light the darkness. 

Selfishness was not the natural state of a social species. It was the result of a ceding to corruption, to terror, to the internal weakness of the frightened animal brain that still lived under the layers of developed consciousness. Likewise could it be conquered, and each person lend a hand down to the next, and most be saved. 

Nodens raged. "I will send the plagues, as I did in Egypt!" 

Nyarlathotep laughed, and his laugh was the inevitability of flowering upon a grave. "Each plague you help them to breed is cured also by their hand." 

Nodens coiled to take in his own tail, consumed himself, unworked perpetually hungry and eternally miserable, as the peddlers of empty, harmful vice always were. The God who styled himself God paced, and tore his hair, and snarled, "Why do you persist? It is inevitable that I will take all in the end. I need succeed only once, whether by pestilence, plague, or plastic - I am a being of multipurpose and I will never tire." 

Nyarlathotep, incarnated in mortal flesh, folded his fashioned arms behind himself, and smiled dazzlingly bright in his borrowed form. "So long as we both play this game, I shall win in small gains, over centuries, over eons; each time we place our bets, I win, and I shall only lose once, when all is lost. Until then, it entertains me."

"I will hurt you." Nodens sneered, "For every one of them that cleaves to ignorance, and selfishness, and viciousness toward others in my name, I will hurt you." 

Nyarlathotep shrugged. "Then I will be hurt. But for all those who quietly supplant their worst selves, and lift themselves out of fear, until the final dusk, I remain the winner."


End file.
